Project management - past and current practices within Sensorica
This page describes project stewardship within Sensorica and their associated tools.
In traditional terms, one would use the term "project management". Does this traditional concept applied to the OVN model? Perhaps not... In essence, here we want to talk about ways to make processes (in ventures or projects) deterministic, to do achieve their mission and goals in effective time and with an acceptable level of quality.
Type of ventures
Here we are interested with small scale ventures or swarm-like.Scale is an important factor when it comes to stewardship of projects.
How ventures are created
Any Sensorica affiliate can start a venture, there is no group decision, no admission process, see more on openness. But any affiliate can redflag a venture for wrongdoing and initiate procedures of exclusion. Free initiative is encouraged within Sensorica, as long as it remains within the mission of the OVN.
We believe that the cohesion of a the network is insured by a set of common interests. In the past, a few venture propositions have been advised against because their topic didn't match Sensorica's mission.
To create a venture, one needs to become a network affiliate, adhere to the governance and the contribution accounting system.
The (S)HELP - Create a new venture explains the procedure.
Online tools
All the online tools that Sensoricans use form a digital environment for collaboration. See more on the digital environment on the Sensorica's website. Note that there are plans to move from a 2D digital environment (the website / page paradigm) to a more flexible environment that can support stigmergy. The following describes a suite of tools that have been and/or are currently used to compose Sensorica's collaborative digital environment.
The website
Every venture has a dedicated venture page on Sensorica's website, which is the main repository of information. See list of most active ventures. The venture page is build using a template, which contains sections. At the time this article is written, the greens for Good is the most developed venture.
- Problem: These venture pages have limited interactive capability and affiliates rarely visit them and don't participate to their maintenance. Participants rely mostly on documentation materials (docs) and on communication tools, which generates orientation overhead for core affiliates, as they need to always tell people where to look to find this or the other thing. Normally, everything one needs to contribute to a venture should be found on the venture's page.
Ventures that create products and services have a Path to market page, which is built using this template. This page informs processes as well as product design. It also details incentives for participation.
Every venture has a Dashboard page (linked to the contribution accounting system), which is build using this template. It contains information pulled from the NRP-CAS, displays participation and provides lists of processes and tasks.
The database
Sensorica is using Google Drive as repository of venture-related content and others. Every venture has a Main doc, which is updated along the venture's development path - see template. Ventures have a series of other important documents, such as:
- Capacity: digital environment for those who are working to bring in resources and talent, see template
- Deliverables: digital environment for those who develop whatever the venture produces, see template
- Dissemination: Digital environment for those who work to spread whatever the venture produces,see template
Other tools
In order to structure tasks, Sensorica affiliates have also experimented in the past with
- Lists, which was a page template part of the old Google Sites,
- Spreadsheet-based Gantt Charts,
- Trello,
- Pivotal Tracker.
These tools have been embedded on venture's web pages using iframes. Steve pushed a lot in 2012 for the use of these other tools that were more specialized.
Problem: Non of these project management tools have stuck with the community. In realty, the contribution accounting system was incompatible with all of them and there was some resistance within the community to invest time into a traditional project management application/tool that would in fact be abandoned.
Meetings
During the first years, Sensorica affiliates used to meet every Thursday 3 PM EST for a "technical meeting" and a "general business meeting". The meetings were on Hangout. Some of them were broadcasted live on the Internet. Some of them were are also recorded and openly shared on Youtube - see here. Meeting minutes were recorded into a Google doc.
A special meeting web page was used for meetings and a meeting help is also available..
- Problem: affiliates usually don't go back to the meeting minutes to remember priorities and tasks that were recorded during the meeting.
Setting priorities
Priorities are set informally by affiliates during meetings or during communication using messaging or emails. A few Sensorica affiliates have emerged playing the role of coordination and of setting priorities more often then others. Affiliates decide to contribute to ventures based on their interest, passion, possibilities...
No one can force anyone to do anything. Peer pressure has emerged as an effective mechanism to align the activity of one affiliate with the goals of the group. Phil was the first to verbalize this method.
The NRP-CAS has priorities attached to processes and priority is also a modulator that can be used in the benefits distribution algorithm in order to deferentially incentivize activity according to importance. In other words, important tasks are rewarded more than non-important ones. These tools have not been used yet.
Coordination and facilitation
We observed that ventures that last longer fluctuate in activity. There are periods with a lot of activity, when everyone is motivated and the group is highly coordinated, with regular meetings and good documentation. At times, fatigue that set's in. We also need to mention that no Sensorica venture has reached the scale a swarm project. After a calm period, usually someone comes in and takes the role of facilitator or coordinator. This individual uses different techniques to pull attention back towards the venture, by asking more questions, organizing activities, meetings, and "work parties". Some ventures within the Sensorica OVN are old enough and provide enough data to perform an analysis and to extract some trends. The Mosquito venture is the oldest one, the original venture on which Sensorica was built, and the Manipulators (originally called Mantis) has enough history too.
The following is the most common practice in Sensorica for coordination:
Sensoricans have used Google Calendar since the beginning, since it integrates well with other Google tools that the community uses. All active affiliates can have access to the Sensorica calendar, can create and modify events.
Content, transparency, stigmergy. As soon as a venture is proposed, a digital environment is created for it. This space integrates content relevant to the venture, it becomes a on-stop shop, the starting point from where one gets access to everything else. This tool is part of the content management module of the OVN's infrastructure (OVNi). More concretely, a venture page is created on Sensorica's website. In general, it can be a wiki page, etc.
Other spaces are created for other type of content, like a folder in our database, a place where photos are stored and shared across the network and beyond, a tag for shared URLs in Diigo, etc.
Documentation has multiple purposes: captures knowledge, organizes workflow, attributes and surfaces talents and skills, coordination, signals activity, needs and wants, etc. Almost all content is shareable not only within the community, but also across the web - more on transparency.
Stigmergy is mostly apparent in Google docs, which are real time collaborative digital environments. Sensoricans have created a symbolic language to leave traves behind and signal to others about opportunities of contributions. A main document is created with the most important information. This document is continuously updated during the life of the project. Coordination also happens in Google documents, using comments and the "@" function to call someone's attention to something specific. Direct email communication is also extensively used for coordination.
Signaling. during the first years, when Sensorica was on the old Google sites, an announcement tool (an announcement template page part of the old Google Sites) was embedded into the venture page. The function of this announcement module is to keep people informed with what's happening and what's important. Announcements are designed to spread beyond the community. They also have a role in coordination. This tool produced an RSS feed that could be syndicated. Currently, Sensorica is using a Notes section on the venture page, which is passive. Sensorica also moved from a mailing list as a central communication tool to Discord, a messaging tool, which is more dynamic. Most active ventures have a channel for real time communication and coordination.
Work party
A work party is a day-long activity where a group of individual coordinate to accomplish some tasks. The day might be very complex, with activities in different areas of expertise: tech development, funding, strategy, outreach, etc. The day starts with a meeting and a rough planning. Parts of the puzzle are presented and a plan for the day is presented. Sometimes these workparties are more fluid, based on who shows up when. Relationships are mapped, who depends on who, timing, etc. At some point, the work can be halted and group assesses progress in a relaxed environment. The goals of the day are revised and the work starts again. Throughout the day the white board is updated.
Tools for project and task management
This is about planning. For small scale ventures or projects Sensorica has favoured proactive project and task management systems, tasks and priorities are recorded, affiliates can take tasks and the system can send reminders and alerts. The problem has been that task management systems like Trello don't interfaces with the NRP-CAS, decoupling tasks management from accounting and resource stewarding. The task / project management systems would also need to interface with the Reputation system, since commitment to tasks is a dimension of reputation. The NRP-CAS has already a few features that can be used in task / project management. See also the Recipe page.
Planning vs stigmergy
ToDo - Tibi describe this, based on the new experience with Greens for Good venture.
Requirements
Processes must allow unplanned contributions and required contributions. Required contributions, or requirements, are essentially ways to plan work, use or consumption of materials and space, or use of citations.
See also
External Links
- No boss no chaos - Tibi's presentation (find in there link to presentation doc).
- On leadership - Tibi's presentation.